


A Place to Call Home

by Ange_de_la_Mort



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Sparring, post kh3, small spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ange_de_la_Mort/pseuds/Ange_de_la_Mort
Summary: When two people who share similar traumas meet again, there is bound to be some kind of understanding ...





	A Place to Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anonymous request with the prompt "Sparring that turns into kissing"

The sun rises over Radiant Garden, a reddish stripe of light on the distant horizon. It's early. Way too early. Not even the birds are singing yet.  
  
Most people are still in their beds and sleeping, lying under the warm covers, their heads on a soft pillow, their eyes closed and their thoughts full of beautiful dreams.  
  
Braig has long since stopped being like most people, and even though his thoughts now belong to him again, there are no beautiful dreams that visit him at night, nothing to happily recall the next morning in the deepest corners of his mind, nothing that might cause a faint smile or a warm feeling in his heart until the last memories of the latest pleasant dream slowly fade away during the day.  
  
Braig's dreams are always the same, always the same moments, the same scenes. Memories that simply don't want to withdraw from him, because they've settled too deeply in his mind, because they don't let him escape. Those that don't fade and disappear, no matter how much he may wish for it.  
  
Fingers, hands, legs that no longer obey him. His mouth, saying someone else's words. His body, heart and soul, in which someone else has settled.  
  
With a sigh on his lips, he stands at the window watching the sunrise, one of many, of countless ones he has seen in recent months, because it's better than being asleep. Because at least when he is awake he can sometimes think of something else than what happened to him, to all of them.   
  
Sometimes he manages to look at the others without wondering if they hate him. For everything that has happened. Whether they blame him even though it wasn't his fault. Whether they believe that they would've been stronger in his situation, would've resisted better.  
  
Sometimes he manages not to think at all.  
  
And sometimes, far too rarely, but still from time to time, he even manages not to dream.  
  
Nevertheless, it can't go on like this, he thinks, scoffing quietly and rubbing his bare forearms (despite the early hour it's warm outside, almost summer. The cold inside him is a different one, a constant goosebump that just doesn't want to go away), and slowly turns away from the open window. It can't go on like this. He can't ...   
  
He rolls his remaining eye at himself. He can't go on living like this, he almost thought, but that's nonsense. He can, he literally can live again, live his own life with his own thoughts and choices, and he should make the best of it.   
  
For a long moment he hesitates, and then he makes one of the hardest decisions since he's been himself again: he reaches for his phone.  
  
_  
  
The sun rises, a reddish stripe of light on the distant horizon. Another sunrise, one of the nearly hundred he has counted since he's himself again. He doesn't want to miss any of them. Doesn't waste a day, a minute, a second.  
  
He has missed ten years of his life. That is more than enough. From now on his life, his time, his days belong to him again and to him alone. And when he inhales the fresh air of the new morning, he once again decides to enjoy every day and fill it with meaning.  
  
Perhaps he will go into the city. Or on journeys. See other worlds, this time with his own eyes. Maybe he will meet new people, make new friends. Maybe ...   
  
The ringing of his phone tears him out of his thoughts. Terra blinks and furrows his brow. Who would call him so early in the morning? Surely it must be something important!   
  
Hastily he reaches for the phone lying on his bedside table, and even as he pushes the button to answer the call he wonders what might have happened - is it Riku? Or the mouse king? Maybe they found a trace of Sora! Maybe-  
  
"Oh," he says quietly. Well, that's a face he hasn't seen in a while. He automatically tenses up, narrows his eyes. "What do _you_ want?"  
  
The man on the other side of the screen still looks exactly the same as when he last saw him. When he could catch a glimpse from the corner of his eye of how Braig had attacked his friends. When he had no chance to come to their aid because Xehanort ... had other things in store for him.  
  
The eyepatch. The nasty scar on his face. He doesn't look a single day older than all these years ago. The only difference lies in his posture - the few times that they had faced each other, Braig - the man Terra thought to be Braig at the time - had always pretentiously bared his teeth in a wide grin,with an arrogant spark in his eyes and biting, hurtful words left for him.  
  
Now his brown eye looks dull, the dark rings underneath almost violet. Now he isn't grinning. Instead, he shrugs his shoulders, looking at him seriously through the phone screen. "I'd say there's no need to be that hostile, but, well. Can't blame you."  
  
"What do you _want_?" he asks again, because even though by now he's been told by the boy - Ienzo, right? - what had happened back then, Terra has gone through too much, experienced too much, seen too much, endured too much to just trust anyone without being on the safe side so that he won't spend ten or more years locked up in his own body again, forced to do things he doesn't want to do, forced to hurt the people he loves. And then something else comes to his mind and the lines on his forehead deepen. "How did you even get my number?"  
  
"I ... did some legwork for that." Braig rubs his neck and looks aside, and if Terra didn't know any better, he'd say he's insecure (but he doesn't really know for sure, he never actually met Braig, did he?), but maybe he's just imagining things, because now Braig looks at him again, observes him attentively. "You look ... good. You look the way you're supposed to. 's nice to see."  
  
"Same to you," he says, although they both know that this isn't about compliments, about courtesies. He wants to ask again what Braig wants from him, but Braig gets ahead of him.  
  
"Yeah, I guess being un-possessed gives one that youthful flair." He laughs hoarsely, and even through the distance between them the connection is good enough that it sounds forced to Terra's ears. And obviously not only to his, because now Braig sighs. His shoulders slump. "Look, I ... we need to talk."  
  
"Do we?" Terra raises his eyebrows. A vague hunch creeps up on him, since there is, after all, only one topic on which they share a common ground, on which there might be a need for conversation. "Well, then talk."  
  
"Not like that. That's ... you know ... "  
  
Terra doesn't know. And Braig doesn't explain, he just bites his lower lip for a moment and looks straight at him. "Can you come over? To Radiant Garden? I'm kinda stuck here and I guess it'd be better to talk about this stuff face to face."  
  
At first Terra wants to ask him why he should come at all. Why he should be stepping into something that might as well be a trap. If Braig really thinks he's that stupid. Then he thinks that he knows what it's like to lose himself. And then, at last, he might even feel something like pity, because it's obvious that Braig hasn't been as successful as Terra himself in dealing with the whole thing. Maybe Terra has simply been lucky. Maybe he has the better friends (no, he is very sure his friends are the best friends ever, after all, nobody is a more important and powerful part of his heart than Aqua and Ven!), ones that have been good at helping him cope.  
  
Maybe he just still believes in the good in all people, because he says: "Sure. But if that's a trap-"  
  
"Then you'll fuck up my other eye or whatever, yadda yadda." Now Braig is smiling. At least a little. "See you in a few."  
  
When the conversation breaks off, Terra stares at the phone in his hand for a few long moments. Finally he sighs and shakes his head.  
  
What is he getting into?  
  
_  
  
Not much has changed here, Terra thinks, as he strolls across Radiant Garden's marketplace. It looks exactly the same as it did then - a clear sign of the willpower and love of the inhabitants for their world. Terra heard that Radiant Garden had been destroyed for a long time, a consequence of everything that Xehanort and the man who had possessed Braig's body had done to plunge the world into darkness, knowingly or accidentally.   
  
They have rebuilt the entire city. And probably not just this one city, probably there are dozens, maybe a hundred other cities in the world, small villages, countless people who had lost everything for so long - including their souls.  
  
The thought depresses him and he shakes his head to drive it away. Instead, he looks at his phone again, probably for the fifth time in as many minutes, to make sure he finds the right address. Shortly after he'd hung up, Braig had sent him the name of a café where they were to meet. Not the castle. No sinister alley. Not the sewer system.   
  
An open space, bright and full of people.  
  
Terra is not sure whether that reassures him or not.  
  
When he turns into the street he has been told, he can see the curved writing of the café, which bears the absolutely extraordinary name "Le Café". And he can see the red scarf, whose owner he immediately recognizes, even if Braig sits with his back to him. For a moment, Terra wonders if that was intentional, to make him appear defenseless and lull Terra into safety, but then he shakes his head about himself. Even so, Braig couldn't have foreseen which direction Terra was coming from.  
  
He takes his time to look at him - sitting there, bent over his cup, with his shoulders sagging, the weak breeze ruffling his hair. Even from a distance, he can see that Braig is not wearing a uniform (did they throw him out of the guard?), but a dark, casual jacket. Something appropriate to the weather. Very faintly, Terra thinks that maybe he should also have done that.  
  
But it's too late for that now, because now he's already close to Braig. "It's a nice place", he says and pulls the other chair towards himself to sit across from him.  
  
Only now does Braig look up and smile thinly, almost a little forced, putting his hands around his coffee cup. "Well, I thought neutral ground would be the best place to meet up. You know, I was hoping you'd have some qualms about offing me in a crowded, open place."  
  
"I hope you'd have the same courtesy."  
  
Braig just waves it off without even responding. His gaze is on Terra as he reaches for the menu and a faint smile plays around the corners of his mouth. "Let's not talk about the fact that _I_ haven't actually offed anyone so far. Hey, if you have a bit of time, maybe try the ice-cream, I know it's a little too early in the morning, but that's what this place is popular for and they're _really_ good at-"  
  
"I think I'll just have some tea," Terra declares harsher than intended, and it costs him every effort not to apologize immediately when the smile freezes on Braig's face. He hesitates for a moment and breathes deeply. "You wanted to talk," he says, very careful to sound neutral.  
  
"Sure, I ... thanks for coming," Braig says, and Terra can see that he wants to say more, but since the waiter is approaching to take Terra's order just at that moment, he is silent, turning his gaze away.   
  
This gives Terra the opportunity to watch him, see if there's anything wrong with this situation. If so, then Braig is a better actor than the man from back then was.   
  
Braig's fingers are still around the coffee cup. Terra can't avert his gaze. Just how much blood might have been on these hands?  
  
He is immediately ashamed of this thought and looks at his own hands, which are no less clean, which have killed, slaughtered and murdered just as much. And that just as involuntarily.  
  
"You wanted to talk," he says again, this time carefully and gently. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."  
  
Slowly Braig turns his head in his direction, and for the first time Terra sees something like life in his gaze. "I just ... I ... "He sighs and rolls his eye at himself. "I just wanted to say sorry, man. For everything."  
  
"As far as I've heard it wasn't your fault," he says. _And you couldn't have done that over the phone?_ he thinks. _There's gotta be something else, come on._  
  
"Sure, whatever. It still ... feels like that, and I..." He briefly bites his lower lip and scratches his neck. "How're you doing it? Coping with that stuff, and all. You know."  
  
 _No, I really don't know_ , Terra wants to say, but just tilts his head, giving him time to collect his thoughts and put them into words.  
  
He can almost imagine what it will lead to.  
  
"How do you manage to not go insane with guilt?"  
  
"I haven't done anything wrong."  
  
"Bullshit!" Braig slams his flat hand on the table, flinches at the noise. "I ... you fucking know what I mean! The old asshole was using your hands, your eyes, your mouth the whole time! You can't tell me that you never thought 'Why wasn't I stronger?' or 'Why didn't I fight more?', you just _can't_! You can't tell me that shit's not affecting you!" His voice breaks. He breathes heavily, flatly, as if he'd just run hundreds of miles, while staring at Terra with a gaze that is at the same time as angry and desperate as Terra had felt for a long time.  
  
Then he lowers his gaze and turns his head away, and first Terra asks himself whether he is ashamed of himself, but then sees that the waiter approaches with Terra's teacup and Braig probably just wants to hide his outburst.  
  
Terra thanks the waiter with a smile and then lets two sugar cubes sink down into the hot liquid, stirs them up with a spoon.  
  
There is nothing he could say to help Braig, for of course he knows these thoughts, knows the fear, the insecurity that the other man must feel. There is no universal remedy for injuries to the soul, for neither a potion nor a simple healing spell can repair these cracks in someone's heart.  
  
"I have friends," he finally says.  
  
From Braig's gaze he can tell that this was not the answer he'd hoped for.  
  
Braig leans back in his chair and crosses his arms in front of his chest, pulling a face. "Yeah, whatever, and one of them was a fucking vegetable for half his life." Before Terra can respond, he shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. "Sorry. That was ... sorry," he repeats once more and then looks aside, watching a couple laughing and holding hands as they stroll out of the café. But maybe he's just pretending. Maybe he's just thinking about what to say, or do, or think next. Maybe he's like Terra has been during the first days - surrounded by familiar and joyful faces and yet so caught in his own world of the darkest darkness that he can't see the helping hands stretching out towards him.  
  
Terra sighs softly and reaches for his teacup, takes a sip. The bittersweet taste warms him from the inside out, betraying the emerging memories of Aqua's worried face and Vens tears. Silently, he examines Braig, the tight expression around the corners of his mouth, the exhaustion in his posture. The way his jaw is clenched. Everything about him reminds Terra almost painfully of himself. Finally he slowly puts the cup down and carefully says: "You have friends, too."  
  
In response, he only receives a sound somewhere between a mocking laugh and a growl. Braig still doesn't look at him, even as his lips move, and he speaks words that Terra feels more than he hears. "They blame me."  
  
"Really?" Terra rests his elbows on the table and his chin on a palm. When Braig turns to him again, his brows raised, Terra smiles - hopefully - disarmingly. "The last time I talked to Ienzo, that sounded a lot different." Braig opens his mouth, but Terra doesn't let him speak: "It sounded more like everyone was glad to have you back. The way I heard you'd been like some kind of weird uncle to Ienzo when he was a child."  
  
"I ... he was _twelve_ when everything went to hell. _Twelve_. He should have had something like a normal childhood! Not having his heart ripped out of his body to add some more trauma to his plate."  
  
"He's now doing fine."  
  
"Yeah, _now_ , wow, what a lucky kid!" With an exhausted sound Braig lets his shoulders sag and sneers crookedly. "How can he not hate me? Like, I mean ... I hate me."  
  
 _We've all been there_ , Terra thinks without saying it. Instead he says: "That's what it's all about, right? You hate yourself and you project that onto your friends."  
  
Braig blinks once, twice. Squints at him. "You really try your best to be a smartass, don't you?"  
  
"This is what you asked me to come here for. To give you some advice on how to cope. Well, I told you how I do it." He raises one hand to make sure Braig doesn't even think about interrupting him. "I know you think they can't understand what you've been through. But they've all had their own fair share of demons, I'm certain they'll manage."  
  
"Well, look at you. All grown up and giving life lessons." He sighs and runs his fingertip over the edge of his coffee cup, looks into it as if he could find the answers to all life's questions there. "Fine. Okay. I'll talk to them."  
  
"Great." Terra smiles. "And next time I'm here you can tell me all about that."  
  
Now Braig looks up at him and, questioningly, tilts his head. "What? You're coming back?"  
  
"Sure. we're friends now. Hey, and as my new friend-" He grins a bit again, winning and uncertain at the same time. "-you're gladly going to pay for my tea, right? I don't have munny with me."  
  
When Braig looks at him dumbfoundedly for a moment and then bursts into a resounding, real roar of laughter, throwing his head back, Terra is surprised to think that this laughter is a sound he would like to hear more often.  
_  
  
As if by magic, one, two, three months pass in which they first see each other every few weeks and now every few days. Terra has already thought of the small café as their regular café. He knows the menu by heart, as well as the names of the waiters and the many little things that one wouldn't notice if one didn't take a closer look: That the windows are only cleaned up to a certain point, because otherwise one would have to climb on tables and over chairs to reach every spot. That Mondays always end with someone leaving their newspaper behind - and that Braig always pockets it because he's too cheap to buy one for himself.  
  
Speaking of Braig ...   
  
Terra looks at the wall-mounted clock in the distance, at the second hand that constantly moves, and tilts his head.  
  
Usually, Braig is never too late. Usually, he's always already sitting there, grinning broadly when Terra enters the café, accusing him of still having to work on his punctuality, now after all those years under Xehanort's "thumb" his biorhythm should finally get shaken awake, and sometimes Terra thinks he's showing up intentionally much too early just to wind him up. Or to tell him that it's "about time he showed up" because Braig desperately has to share the latest gossip about life in the castle. Or because he's just happy to see Terra.  
  
He never says that in exactly these words, but Terra has the vague suspicion that this is the case. Maybe, however, it's just his own hope that he now projects on Braig, imagining things - the thin smile half hidden behind the coffee cup, a look out of the corner of his eye when he thinks Terra doesn't notice it, a hesitation in his movement, before he puts a hand on Terra's shoulder, smiling, when they say goodbye - that he wants to exist.  
  
However, the fact that Braig is now too late, five, ten, fifteen minutes, worries him. It's torturous minutes that pass too slowly, because he can't take his eyes off the damn clock. Nervously, he drums his fingers onto the table.  
  
Every time one of the waiters passes by, he just repeats that he is waiting for a friend.  
  
Each time, his smile becomes a little more forced.  
  
... Did he really imagine everything? Did Braig abandon him? Is he not as important to him as he assumed and hoped? Or is he held up by something? That can always happen now that Braig is working in the castle again. Somebody could always have started an argument somewhere with a guard like him, or ...   
  
... hopefully he is doing fine.  
  
With a soft sigh Terra looks at his phone in the faint hope that he has missed one or maybe a hundred calls. Nothing. Of course. Another sigh. Then he puts the phone back into his pocket and finally orders a cup of tea.  
  
Of course, he could also call Braig on his own. Quite casually. Could go: "Hey, how are you doing?" or: "Oh, was that today? I forgot, but since I happen to be around, I'll be right there!" or: "Where are you, I'm worried?"  
  
Well, maybe not the last one.  
  
But seriously, how hard would it have been to just call Terra and say-  
  
"Fuck! Sorry, sorry I'm late!  
  
Yes! Exactly that!  
  
Wait a minute.  
  
Hastily he turns his head to look over his shoulder - and dislocates something, because a tendon in his neck cracks terribly, but that doesn't matter, because hey, Braig is here! He's really here and he's fine, apart from gasping as if he'd just run a marathon, and then he looks apologetically and puts a hand on his shoulder, and even through the fabric of his shirt Terra's skin feels hot and tingling where he touched it and ...  
  
Wait another minute.  
  
He blinks, scrutinizes him with furrowed brow. "Wait. Something's different about you."  
  
"Oh. Think so?" Braig grins very broadly and slides past him, lets himself fall onto the other chair and rests his elbows on the table. "Well, I'm not telling! You gotta find out all by your smart-assy self!"  
  
"Sure," Terra says with a sigh on his lips and a roll of his eyes. "Sure. Why should you ever be helpful for once?" To his surprise, Braig remains silent. No reply, no pseudo sassy remark. Nothing. So Terra leans back in his chair with another sigh and crosses his arms in front of his chest, examines him extensively: The way he has put his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands. The old, tattered scarf he always wears, always, without exception, and about which Terra has not yet found out the meaning of its existence. He almost assumes that it is a lucky charm, an heirloom perhaps, even if he wonders why someone should inherit a moth-eaten scarf. But he doesn't know for sure, they're not that far yet. Never mind. Next. Then there is the smile on his lips, the smallest hint of bared teeth. The scar on his cheek, which certainly looks only half as painful as it must have been back then. In stark contrast to this, the glow in Braig's brown eyes, whose gaze curiously and waiting for him fixes and ...   
  
Wait.  
  
"Your-" Words fails him for a moment and he clears his throat hastily. "Your ... eyes. You have two."  
  
"You really are a smartass," Braig comments with the widest grin on his lips. "That only took you what? Half an hour?"  
  
"Stop insulting me, you are horrible!"  
  
"Duly noted." The grin doesn't disappear, Terra even thinks it's just getting a little wider. "So? You like it?"  
  
"It ... " _It's great. It's wonderful. How the hell did you do that? You look amazing!_ "Well, its an eye," he finally says, calmly, although his heart is pounding up his throat and he has to swallow around a lump. "How did you do that? Heal a wound like this?"  
  
"I didn't. It's glass." As proof, he knocks the knuckle of his index finger against the eye - Terra can't help but wince at the sight. "I bullied Even into getting one for me."  
  
"I ... it looks ... very real."  
  
"I know, right? That's the best thing about it! Also, when I roll my eyes, it doesn't move, and that's _super cool_ , It creeps people out so much!"  
  
Figures that he sees this as an advantage ... Terra notices a smile forming on his lips. But it freezes immediately when he thinks about what the whole thing might mean. Is Braig ashamed of the injury? Does he hate it? How could he not, after all he was now missing an eye for a decade ... Does he hate Terra for it? ... how could he not? It was Terra who ... "I never really apologized for that," he says quietly and gloomily, a shadow on his voice and soul.  
  
To his surprise, Braig waves off as if it were the most trivial thing in the world. "Don't. It's fine. I mean, it's not really fine, but you know what I mean."  
  
"I ... am afraid I don't?" Terra tilts his head and frowns.  
  
"At that time, I was an enemy, trying to get you so riled up you'd use the darkness inside you. To make your heart weak and fragile." Braig hesitates and gives the scar a scratch. "I don't think I'd have acted differently had I been in your place."  
  
"But it wasn't your fault."  
  
"And it wasn't yours either. Nobody could know that this one darkness attack thing had a craving only eyes could satisfy or whatever." Braig laughs quietly, but in Terra's ears it sounds wrong, it sounds dull and tired. "Look, it's really ... " He trails off and shrugs his shoulders, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, but the way his fingers twitch betrays his insecurity. "Let's put that behind us. I have this pretty glass eye and I'm cool with it."  
  
"I didn't know the eyepatch had bothered you this much. I'm ... "  
  
"If you try to apologize one more time, I swear I will kick you in the shin," Braig warns him with a raised index finger and, as proof and warning, he stretches out his leg under the table and pokes the tip of his boot against Terra's leg.   
  
Defensively Terra lifts up his hands and laughs a little. "Fine. Fine! No apologizing."  
  
"Good. Good boy. Behave." Braig wiggles his index finger and then crosses his legs at the ankle, rubbing his neck. "Look, I ... don't get the wrong idea. This isn't about you. And I'm ... I'm not a coward, you know?"  
  
 _I never said you were,_ Terra wants to say, but since he believes that there's a story behind this beginning, or perhaps something like an explanation, he's silent, waiting.  
  
"I'm not... afraid to wear and show my battle scars," Braig continues a little absent-mindedly, his gaze turned inward. "But that one's not mine. And I ..." He hesitates for a long instant, and Terra already wonders whether the moment is over, whether he has reconsidered talking about it. Then he sighs quietly. "I wanna look in the mirror and see myself again. Not him. Never him."  
  
Slowly Terra nods when he realizes that he has at least been spared that himself. In the first time, after Xehanort had taken over his body, his heart had been sleeping. And then it had already been banished from his body.  
  
If he had ever looked in a mirror during that time, he wouldn't have recognized himself or anyone else, not Ansem, not the Guardian.  
  
... he is not quite sure whether that can be a comfort to him.  
  
"Anyway," Braig suddenly says and tears Terra out of his thoughts. "Anyway. I want you to know one thing." There's the grin again, wide and full of teeth, and Braig slowly stretches out a hand to point determinedly and meaningfully at him, popping holes in the air in front of his chest. "If it hadn't been for that key of yours, your ass would totally have been toast."  
  
Terra blinks in confusion. Once. Twice. And then he recognizes the challenge in Braig's words, even if he can't yet tell if it really is one - or if he just wants to make sure once more that Terra has understood that he doesn't have to apologize for their fight back then. Or whether he wants to prove to himself that he doesn't mind the injury. He asks: "Really?" and leans a little to him.  
  
"Really. Y'know, if you need _proof_ or anything ... "  
  
Terra laughs and gets up, extends a hand to him, inviting, not helping. "Oh, you're _so_ on."  
  
_  
  
For the record, they only held each other until they reached the Radiant Castle training room to prevent either of them from chickening out. If one wants to try to interpret it differently, one can also say that they held hands.  
  
Terra thinks his interpretation of the situation is great, but he hasn't dared to talk about it because he can't be sure whether he is alone with that view or not. It would be absolutely embarrassing if he were to make any attempts at flirting and fall on deaf ears. Embarrassing. And sad. And a little stressful, because he can't explain himself exactly when his "relationship" with Braig went from "We're talking to each other, because that's the way it is" to "Hey, I hope you're fine, I'm worried, and oh, by the way, I wouldn't mind if we occasionally intertwined our fingers and said sentences that would be extremely embarrassing to us under other circumstances, and are you even the type for something like that?"  
  
Literally.  
  
Because they're in the training room now, and Braig has let go of his hand, and Terra resists the urge to reach out for him again. Instead, he crosses his arms in front of his chest and clears his throat. "So", he begins, and because he can't think of anything else, he simply repeats it again, hoping to buy himself a little time. "So."  
  
Braig tilts his head and raises his brow in this mixture of amazement and mockery that Terra knows so well by now and which sometimes makes him want to wring his neck. He keeps silent towards him, inviting him to formulate his non-existent thoughts.  
  
... Son of a bitch.  
  
So Terra takes a deep breath and says this word a third time, and then: "Okay, so what's the plan? You teleport all over the place and shoot me from afar while I'm not allowed to defend myself?"  
  
Braig snaps his fingers. "Sounds fun, yeah."  
  
"Not to me, no."  
  
"Spoilsports." Braig puts one hand to his hip and shakes his head in almost disappointment, but the grin on his lips betrays him. "Fine. Let's do it like this: You keep standing there, I punch you in the face a few times, and then we both cheer about how good I am and how I totally owned your ass."  
  
"I really don't think- Hey!" he exclaims as the first punch approaches, hastily taking a step backwards. And then another one. "No fair!" he complains, but Braig just laughs and attacks again.  
  
He's quick. Even without using his magic. Terra has problems keeping up whenever Braig closes the distance between them to land a strike on his nose or chest or ear, and Terra has to admit that sometimes he relied too much on the raw power of his Keyblade, because _fast and agile_ has never been his thing before.  
  
In the beginning it's still fun. A training fight. Nothing more.  
  
But every time Terra dodges or counters, every time he fends off Braig's punches, it seems to get more serious. And with every minute Terra fears more and more that he's gotten himself involved in something stupid.  
  
Not because Braig could seriously harm him. Not like that, without a weapon, without magic.   
  
But because he notices that Braig is getting himself into something he probably won't get out of without help ...   
  
He sees the grim expression in Braig's face. His jaws pressed together, the trembling in his clenched fists. That it feels, looks as if Braig actually wants to beat him up, take revenge on him for that, although he said that this is not the case.  
  
He sees it in the way Braig's gaze has become gloomy, in the way a shadow has fallen over his eyes, even over the glass one.  
  
There are quite different demons that Braig is now trying to fight, and Terra is just the random outlet. As he dodges and stumbles backwards, as he fends off the quick blows fed by anger and despair, while making an effort not to hurt Braig at the same time, he wonders if he's the first person Braig has asked for a brawl - because that's all it is, let's be honest. Or whether the others, his friends, simply knew better, refused because they didn't want to support this self-destructive streak.  
  
Funny. That's something else they share with each other. That's something they should probably talk about. Maybe. When Braig stops going after him.  
  
Or maybe even before that, because Terra now scoffs quietly and ducks away under one of Braig's punches and storms forward. He hears the confused sound that Braig makes when Terra, his walking target, suddenly no longer stands in the same place as he did fractions of a second ago, but even if Braig should try to evade now, he is too late:  
  
Terra grabs the outstretched arm in front of him and clutches it with all his strength; in a flowing movement he turns around, turns his back on Braig, feels their clothes rubbing against each other. It's almost like a hug, with Braig wrapping an arm around him from behind.  
  
But this embrace ends with Terra tightening his muscles and shifting his center of gravity. He uses his own weight to lever Braig's and throw him over his shoulder.  
  
This gives him a soft, surprised scream. Then a dull moan as Braig's back hits the floor, as the air is pressed out of his lungs.   
  
Terra flinches, for he had firmly expected Braig to catch himself, save himself through his magic and emerge behind Terra to laugh at him and kick him in the back of the knee. Hurriedly he kneels down to him, with one hand resting on the ground next to him. "Sorry! I didn't mean to- are you alright?"  
  
It takes a moment for Braig to open his eyes again and look up at him. He is silent. Then he silently forms words with his lips.  
  
Terra just gets even more worried, and he wants to say something again, wants to help him up, only leans closer to him.  
  
And Braig is fast.  
  
Far too fast.  
  
And before Terra has realized it properly, Braig has leaned on his elbows and grabbed the collar of Terra's shirt with his hand in a surprisingly firm grip. Before he knows it, Braig's lips brush against his own, only a breath of air, a faint hint of a touch.  
  
Terra's eyes widen. Heat rushes into his cheeks. He opens his mouth to say something -  
  
\- and curses loudly when he's pushed back.   
  
Even before his back comes into proper contact with the ground, Braig is above him, on him, sitting on his hip and looking down at him with a broad grin on his lips.   
  
"That ... what was that?" Terra asks as he regains his breath. Trying not to pay too much attention to how comfortable Braig's weight feels on him, how warm his gloved fingers close around Terra's biceps.   
  
"I told you I'd kick your ass," is the answer he almost expected, but which makes him roll his eyes. "I'm just _that_ amazing."  
  
"You were cheating."  
  
Braig shrugs the complaint off. "Oh come on, fighting fair is _so_ out, you should know that best." He clicks his tongue almost contemplatively. "So, I wasn't cheating. I was distracting you. Your own fault if you fall for that."  
  
"Really," Terra says slowly and raises an eyebrow as an idea forms in his head. Only with some effort he can stifle a quiet laugh, as Braig is gesticulating wildly at him and shedding some more words about how much Terra has obviously slackened since he is himself again, and that maybe he should get his ass up more often and train more - of course with Braig, which he suggests in his patronizing kindness without wanting to be selfish at all, no, because he only thinks about Terra's well-being and-  
  
And then, just when he's not looking, Terra's hand shoots forward and he grabs the fabric of the scarf, pulling it hard.  
  
With a confused sound Braig loses his balance - one should hardly believe that this is even possible! - and with another confused sound, Terra feels a shiver going through Braig's body as Terra kisses him.   
  
On his lips.  
  
Firm and unyielding.  
  
And just as he feels Braig relaxing, just as his mouth moves in time with Terra's, he clamps one hand roughly over Braig's shoulder and whirls them both around, pinning Braig to the floor. His right hand still clawed into the coarse fabric of his uniform jacket, the fingers of his other hand around his forearm.  
  
Braig stares at him with widened eyes.  
  
Terra grins broadly.  
  
It takes an unusually long second for Braig to find words to complain again, accusing and surprised: "You were cheating!"  
  
"I was distracting you," Terra corrects him gently. He hesitates for a moment and leans down to him. "Also, I might have been wanting to do that for a while."  
  
"Wait, what?"  
  
"And I might want to do it again."  
  
Now the surprise in Braig's gaze gives way to weak annoyance and he rolls his eyes ... eye ... mockingly. "Yeah, well, what are you waiting for? A written permission slip?"  
  
"I don't think you have any paper on your person right now."  
  
"Yeah, no shit, man. It was sarcasm. Will you just get on with it and kiss me again?"  
  
Yes. He wants that. Would love that. Time and time again.   
  
Nevertheless, he doesn't, but slowly frowns down at him. "... hey, Braig?"  
  
" _What_?"  
  
He sees the impatience in Braig's eyes. Still ... still there is one more thing. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Oh for fuck's sake, way to ruin the mood, man." With a frustrated sound Braig lets his head slump backwards and stares at the ceiling. "If you don't care about sucking faces with me, just say it and let go of me, okay?"  
  
He sounds so miserable that it makes Terra's heart heavy for a moment.  
  
"I do. I do care." When the confusion is reflected in Braig's brown eyes, Terra sighs softly and squeezes his shoulder briefly and reassuringly. "I want to kiss you again. But I- I want this to be a serious thing."  
  
"What, don't you think I'm serious right now?"  
  
"I don't even think you able to ever be serious, but that's beside the point." Yes, and what's the point? Or rather: He knows what the point is, but how does he explain it without it sounding stupid? ... though, at Braig's glance he can see that actually everything he is about to say is going to sound ridiculous. Well, great, if that's the expectation that's being approached, then it can only get complicated ... "The point is ... the point is, if we go on like that, you'll be stuck with me. And I wouldn't feel comfortable if I didn't ... know that you're okay."  
  
"Come on, I was _born_ okay."  
  
Yeah, sure, and Terra was born with dog ears and and a donkey's brain. "Well, but obviously you lost being okay somewhere along the line." When Braig hastily opens his mouth to contradict him, Terra shakes his head and briefly lets go of his arm to lift a finger to remind him to be quiet. "I noticed that you weren't really fighting me, but something else. And that's ... don't interrupt me now, I don't wanna hear that it's not true, I'm not blind, Braig," He takes a very deep breath. "I want to know that you know I'm sorry. About your eye. And your face. And I know you haven't talked about it earlier, but I'm sorry about that scar and if you want to do something about it, if it bothers you, I will ... I will try to help? To make up for everything?"  
  
Now it's Braig who hesitates briefly, looks aside and obviously searches for words. Finally, he raises the arm Terra has released and rubs his neck. "... I actually thought it looked okay. Really. It gives me that roguish charme, don't you think?" The final words are accompanied by a smile so exaggeratedly broad that Terra would like to smack him in the face for it.  
  
Instead, he says: "There's nothing charming about you."  
  
"But it does look good on me?"  
  
"Everything looks good on you, you idiot."  
  
And while Braig still laughs about it, loud and melodious and warm, a laugh that shakes his whole body a little, Terra finally leans down to him to catch the laughter with his lips.


End file.
